Printable coupons aren’t as prevalent as they used to be, but there are still platforms that provide them and brands that offer them.
You just need to take them to a store that will accept them. And one major chain says it no longer will.
Michigan-based Meijer has quietly updated its coupon policy to state that printable coupons are officially a thing of the past at its 269 stores in six Midwestern states. “Meijer does not accept coupons printed on personal printers – paper coupons printed by manufacturers are accepted,” the updated policy reads.
“This change in policy is consistent with the direction of the retail industry,” a Meijer spokesperson told Coupons in the News. “Most consumer product/food manufacturers are continuing the migration to digital coupons, just as Meijer has through our mPerks program.”
Meijer now becomes the first major retail chain to explicitly say it will no longer accept a perfectly valid form of coupon that brands continue to issue and its competitors continue to welcome. While many retailers have put restrictions on high-value or free-item print-at-home coupons in order to protect against potential fraud, no other major chain refuses them outright. “We accept internet and other digital printed coupons,” Albertsons’ coupon policy reads. “We gladly accept valid internet coupons with a scannable barcode,” Target’s coupon policy states. And so on.
Unofficially, Meijer had left it up to individual stores to make their own decisions about whether to accept printable coupons. So the policy change formalizes a practice that many Meijer locations had already implemented. Some stores haven’t quite gotten the hang of the printable ban – “just used two of these today at a self-checkout at Meijer and they went through,” one shopper wrote online about a particular printable coupon just the other day. But other Meijer stores haven’t accepted printable coupons for ages. “My Meijer stopped a long time ago,” one commenter wrote in a Facebook coupon group several years ago. “They refuse to take them because of people who love doing fraud.”
While Meijer’s stated reason for changing its policy makes no mention of fraud, counterfeiting is always a concern. And printable coupons are easier to counterfeit than most other formats, since all it takes is a printer and some rudimentary technical ability to create fake coupons that will slip past a cashier or work at self-checkout. Meijer itself was recently the victim of an $800,000 coupon scam, in which eight shoppers were arrested and convicted for using “fraudulent coupon bar codes” in several different Meijer stores.
That said, printable coupons are more secure than they used to be, with unique serial numbers, more complex bar codes and other features that deter duplication or manipulation. That wasn’t the case when print-at-home coupons first came on the scene decades ago, and many stores – including Meijer – turned against them. “We don’t accept [printable coupons] anymore because there’s too much fraud out there,” a Meijer spokesman told the Columbus Dispatch back in 2003, in an article that reported “retailers are cracking down on online coupons after being burned by a blitz of fakes that have cost them millions of dollars.”
Meijer and others soon relented as the format gained in popularity, security features increased, and cashiers were better trained to spot fakes. According to figures from Inmar Intelligence, print-at-home coupon redemption peaked in 2013, representing 5% of all coupon formats used. But that was back when there were several companies offering printable coupon galleries – remember Coupon Network? RedPlum? SmartSource printables? Fully-digital coupons had yet to catch on. And catch on they have, as digital coupons now represent the majority of all coupons redeemed.
These days, printable coupons account for just around 1% of all coupons redeemed. Coupons.com is still around, featuring dozens of print-at-home offers from numerous brands. And individual brands still offer their own printable coupons, whether on their own website like Procter & Gamble’s P&G Good Everyday, or via a printable provider like Qples or PromotionPod. So while its use has declined and its demise has been predicted for a long time, the printable coupon format isn’t dead.
It is, though, to at least one major retailer. For Meijer shoppers with printable coupons, “just take them somewhere else,” a Meijer couponer advised others on Facebook. “Cross Meijer off your list of places that take printables.” It will be up to shoppers, then, to decide whether to shrug off this policy update, or whether to take their printable coupons – and their business – somewhere else.
